UPDATED ** Q&A with the Naughty Dog Development Team: October Edition **

If you have some questions that you would like to ask Naughty Dog then here is your opportunity to ask them!

Up until about the 10th of October you will be able to post your questions about The Last of Us or Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception here in this thread. Usually 10 questions from this thread will be selected and answered by the Naughty Dog Development Team.

Once the replies are ready they will be posted in this thread for your perusal. What would you like to ask Naughty Dog this month?

If your reply contains more than one question or if you post multiple replies in a row then Naughty Dog may ignore your questions.

To go blow-by-blow, we're looking at the issue of splitting up parties. One option, disabling it, would make matchmaking times much longer (including for other players searching for a match, not just those in your party) so that’s not really a good fix. We're looking at ways of trying to reduce the chance of splits occurring without increasing matchmaking times.

The Last of Us MP already features host migration, which happens silently in the background if the host drops. There are some cases where host migration cannot recover, but we’re always looking at ways to optimize this if there’s a possible way we can.

As for Interrogation mode glitches, we’ve been addressing those that arise as the mode gets played. The issue of too many ties was addressed in the last patch and we hope to improve it further in the future with better messaging of the win/loss result and the part rewards associated with it. We will continue to do this as any issues arise.

If you have any multiplayer-only issues or bugs that you’ve found, we’re doing a trial run of a new technical issues reporting system that will *hopefully* make it easier for us to identify things we need to fix, and give you updates on our progress. You can check it out here: naughtydog.uservoice.com

"Any plans for any more free stuff like Interrogation mode or will all content from now on be part of paid DLC?" - demonsta500

We have some plans bubbling about the future DLC will be. If there are things we can introduce for free we will. The head items were made part of the Season Pass in the effort to make them as affordable as possible.

"Are you going to stop nerfing things in TLOU MP?

You nerfing the EE2 has caused people to switch from EE2 to Brawler and now people are whining about the 2x4. If you nerf the 2x4 you'll only cause people to make the Covert Training 1 and shivs/shiv dancing more popular. Then people will cry about that until you nerf the shiv. You keep nerfing things and you'll cause a never ending vicious cycle until people get fed up and leave TLOU MP. The majority have asked you to not nerf. Read the topic titled ... The "No Need To Nerf" Thread ... where the majority says no nerfing. Please ND no more nerfing weapons/perks (SAR got nerfed even though the majority said no to nerfing the weapons). People need to learn to adapt to games not have games cater to them because they are not good at the game. They need to learn how to improve not have everything nerfed because they cry to you." - A-Crap-Player

Nerf isn’t really a term that’s used – it’s about balance. Look how positive the recent tweaks of the FAL-SS and G-MAL in Uncharted 3 MP are for instance. Our reduction of elements of those weapons made a net positive to feel and use of those weapons. Any tweaks we have made are the result of analyzing player metrics, community feedback and looking at how people are playing the game. If we go too far with a tweak we’ll re-balance at a later date if it serves to make the game more fun and balanced.

"How do you decide on when to nerf something?" – AbstractAlex

Again, Nerf makes some fun toys but we’re looking for balance. Our decisions are never about “how can I reduce how effective something is?” but rather “how can we make the overall game more balanced?” The sum parts of the game must balance out for the whole game to be fun. Any decisions are a combination of analyzing player metrics, playtesting internally, external playtesting, and community feedback. We just strive to be balancing the overall fun factor of the multiplayer game. We look at how weapons are being used and if people are being exploitive with a weapon’s that’s too over powered we’ll tweak to maintain balance. That’s our end goal – proper gameplay balance.

"Is your team at ND surprised by how popular the game has become?? Specifically the MP mode?? I still meet people in the world who have this game, most of them are females!! =P" - A_Nerd_Slapper

We’re very happy with how people are embracing The Last of Us. We couldn’t have dreamed up a better reception. We thought we had something special with our MP and it’s taken off in a very successful way. We’re stoked and aim to keep it going.

"Can you guys add some new interrogation animations? The head against the ground can get old fast." – ProfessorTurnip

Animations can take up valuable resources and we put in the best animations to accurately convey what action your character is taken. The interrogation animation works well. It’s possible we might add some more gestures to the game for other things but it’s going to depend on what we can fit into the resource pool we have available.

"Can you guys consider adding a buff to some of the guns in UC3 (un nerf them)?

I believe the Fal-SS was nerfed via live update, so this shouldn't take long right? For example make the Fal-SS a 4 shot kill again, or stop the Para and Fal from jamming and increase the G-mals stopping power. As of now most players blindfire Kals and use the ROF M9. If the Fal-SS and G-Mal are buffed it may bring back alot of players, and overall make the game even more enjoyable to play!" - Quinzen8

We did that. Now that patch 1.18 is out how do you feel? Let us know!

"What's the word on the multiplayer save glitch? To be more specific, the one that keeps reverting players back to week one day one." - bleep276

The EULA agreement reappearing is a case-by-case issue. It can be caused by a number of things –mostly network related — and we’ll need to look at your individual account very closely to address it. If you’re seeing it please contact a Naughty Dog rep via private message to discuss options.

"During the fungus infection - is Nathan Drake alive or infected? and I would like to know if we (the players community) will be able to play as Joel, Ellie or any other main character in the multiplayer mode?" - raaby6

We’ve stated before that The Last of Us multiplayer is about the Factions. It’s even called Factions. Therefore you’ll only ever play as characters from the certain, distinct Factions. As for Nathan Drake, UNCHARTED and The Last of Us are different franchises.

"Is there a max level in TLOU if so what is it?" - Mazdaspeed-77

Theoretically, it’s 999 but nobody has ever gotten that far. Can you?

Bonus Questions:

"¡About development! ¿Are you Dogs happy or satisfied with made UNCHARTED and The Last of Us or you want to beyond of that?

I was checking the Concept Art of Jak & Daxter: HD Collection and men... They are really big ideas, places and everything, ¡Is scary to thing what you Dogs can do with more power! -Cough cough- PLAYSTATION 4 -Cough cough- I mean, games like ALL YOU DID are already amazing but they can be more incredible, amazing artists and creative minds on the studio... Short Version: ¿There is something BIG you Dog's want to create or show? And i can't wait for 15 of October to play that new maps P.S: Thanks for answer on the Q&A of September " – ClausSanAndreas

We are always striving to raise the bar. That’s the motto here at Naughty Dog. We want to learn from all the games we make and make the next projects better and better.

"How much were you involved (specific tasks please, like graphics, gameplay, story, etc.) in the development of Uncharted Golden Abyss, the Uncharted Playstation Vita game developed by Sony Bend?

I'm interested in knowing that, because I just bhought a Playstation Vita (can't believe I haven't done that earlier, it's an amazing system so far, but a 300$ price tag was to much for me) with Uncharted Golden Abyss, and it really feels like a (although sligthly limited) an Uncharted game, I just teamed up with Sully, I guess that's halfway through the game, and the game is really fun so far, and in some areas even better (exploration is great with all kinds of collectibles and puzzles, you should do that too in Uncharted 4!), but it's missing set pieces, the AI is pretty horrible and the locations all look a little the same, but this is probably due to hardware issues, you can't expect a hendheld to be as powerful as a Playstation 3, even though it's pretty close! I'm also interested because it appears all Sony first party studio's are working on Playstation 4 games, so I want to know how good Sony Bend really is, because if I'm not mistaken Sony Bend wasn't that good before Uncharted Golden Abyss, so that's why I'm curious what role Naughty Dog had in the development of this game, it would be appreciated to get an answer to this question, after all it's the first time there is a question about Uncharted Golden Abyss, it would be a nice to have some variety in the questions, isn't it? " - Matthijs_17

Amy Hennig worked closely with the Sony Bend team to make sure the narrative and the character dialogue fit the UNCHARTED characters and universe. It was mostly story and universe building stuff but we did give Sony Bend access to our character models, some of our tech that was useable for their needs, and a lot of our staff time. It was a great experience and Sony Bend made an excellent game.

"This has been stangley on my mind for a while now and maybe have been asked this many times. But have you guys ever thought of plans on some sort of spiritual successor to Crash Bandicoot since Universal Interactive didn't want to give Sony Crash then later get bought by Activision?" - LightTriforce

Well the short answer is no. We’re not really looking to explore that IP in any way.

Re: ** Q&A with the Naughty Dog Development Team: October Edition **

Are you going to stop nerfing things in TLOU MP? You nerfing the EE2 has caused people to switch from EE2 to Brawler and now people are whining about the 2x4. If you nerf the 2x4 you'll only cause people to make the Covert Training 1 and shivs/shiv dancing more popular. Then people will cry about that until you nerf the shiv. You keep nerfing things and you'll cause a never ending vicious cycle until people get fed up and leave TLOU MP. The majority have asked you to not nerf. Read the topic titled ... The "No Need To Nerf" Thread ... where the majority says no nerfing. Please ND no more nerfing weapons/perks (SAR got nerfed even though the majority said no to nerfing the weapons). People need to learn to adapt to games not have games cater to them because they are not good at the game. They need to learn how to improve not have everything nerfed because they cry to you.